>> good afternoon on this sunday. msnbc world news headquarters in new york. this afternoon we're following the wide spread recollection to donald trump who's not backing off his controversial comments about parents of a fallen u.s. hero. trump saying he had the right to respond. but it was original comments in a pre taped interview parts of which were released saturday morning bringing outrage from all sides. >> his wife. if you look at his wife, she was standing there. she had nothing to say. she probably -- maybe she wasn't allowed to have anything to say.

you tell me. but plenty of people have written that. she was extremely kwooitd and looked like she had nothing to say. a lot of people have said that. and personally, i watched him. i wish him the best of luck. >> how would you answer that? what sacrifice have you made more your country. >> i think i made a lot of sacrifices. i worked very hard. created tens of thousand of jobs. built great structures. i've done -- i've had tremendous success. >> those are sacrifices? >> oh sure i think they are sacrifices. >> the khans went on the offensive responding to trump on "meet the press." >> the way he showed disrespect towards the golden star mother of this country, that says it all. >> your wife. >> my wife. the brave mother of my son.

stewardship of this country needs to be in the hands of the person who has moral compass. who can relate, who has some empathy with the citizens he wishes to lead. this candidate is void of both. >> nbc's katie tur juns oins us the latest reaction. what was the reaction to all this. >> well donald trump is responding directly today. tweeting i was viciously attacked at the democratic convention. am i not allowed to respond? hillary voted for iraq war. not me. we should point out that he has not proven that he was not in support of the iraq war even though he's claimed that. he also tweeted captain khan, killed 12 years ago, was a hero but this is about radical islamic terror and the weakness of our leaders to eradicate. this is the strategy the trump campaign is trying to put forth. he's always said he's a count

counterpuncher. so he's going to counterpunch when he feels attacked. also trying reframe it in a way that suggests not necessarily the khans but radical islamic terror is the issue and president clinton and obama's not able to stop it. and saying that their son was basically sent to iraq and killed by the very thing that he's trying to eradicate. that they cannot eradicate themselves. so this is not necessarily a walk back. it is something of that i guess. but it is not an apology. >> it is not backing down. >> it is not backing down. it is what donald trump and his campaign have been doing now for over 13 months. which is when they are faced with a controversy, double down on that controversy. try to spin the controversy towards their opponent or change the subject. remember in the past two weeks alone there have been four separate controversies.

one, melania trump's plagiarism. ted cruz not endorsing trump on the convention stage. and then his ties to russia and his calls for russia to find the e-mails of hillary clinton. his calls for a foreign government to get involved in american politics that. started a whirlwind. now we're talking about khizr khan. so this is the strategy of the campaign. the playbook. move from one controversy to the next so they can't dwell long enough on one to stick. >> nbc's katie tur, thank you. this never gets old, does it? >> it's not dull. >> and now hillary clinton is weighing in, responding just a short while ago during a campaign stop outside columbus. we're joined live from columbus ohio. casey what are the secretary's response today. >> this of course has exploded into this bus tour that hillary

clinton is doing through pennsylvania into now ohio, we're now in columbus, ohio. which of course one of the main cities. this is a little bit of a different landscape from some of the places we've been to earlier on the tour. more suburban. more college educated. more affluent than youngstown, ohio and some of the places really hard hit by the steel collapse. but hillary clinton starting her day by speaking to a black church in cleveland, ohio and then stopping to talk to the press where she greeted voters as well. and that is where we heard her first response to this issue and donald trump's comments on captain khan. take a look. >> to launch an attack as he did on captain khan's mother a gold star mother, who stood there on that stage with her husband honoring the sacrifice of their

son and who has in the days since spoken out about the overwhelming emotion that any mother would feel as her son was being honored. and then to have trump do what he did, i don't know where the bounds are. >> so there you have it. i was talking to tim ryan, the congressman from ohio yesterday as well. and he talked about how some of the these comments might be a problem for some of the mid western voters used to a little quieter discourse. maybe not comments that aren't along these lines. clearly this is something the clinton sblooefs working in their favor. mitch mcconnell putting out a statement essentially stand wgt the khan family saying he does not agree with a policy that would ban an entire religion from the united states. i think there is a growing sense that this is going to be a pivotal point in the campaign and this is something that is going to have a little bit

longer shelf life. we've seen trump make numerous comments many thought would sink his candidacy and didn't. this seems to be potentially in a different category. obviously we're gonna have to wait and see. but the clinton campaign certainly feeling as if there are many republicans on their side than donald trump. >> we'll see what happens in the days ahead. msnbc's casey hunt. thank you. let's bring in my panel. thank you for talking with us this afternoon. tom, let me start with you. today marks 100 days till election day. and instead of focusing on jobs or winning battle ground state, trump is in the middle of this latest controversy, having a fight with a gold star family. you're a republican strategist. how do you respond to this? >> well i think as katie pointed out as controversy after controversy and no serious

discussion on issues. it is fighting with john kasich in a state that you desperately need in ohio. he needs to attract white women to this campaign and right now he's leading them by one across the country. romney won that by 14. and you have to think the whole controversy with the khan family right now does not help with independent white women. independent women in general who view this gold star mother with empathy. that is missing from donald trump right. now any empathy and feeling. if you disagree with him there is no empathy. and that is not going help. >> reaction has been swift on both sides of the aisle condemning trump's remarks. you heard hillary clinton today. could this have lasting damage on trump. not just for die hards who support him no matter what but for folks in the middle of the road? >> i think it really could wlasmt trump said the fact he went after a gold star mother who lost her sob in the ultimate sacrifice for the country.

it's appalling, aoffensive. and horrifying. and shows a pattern of conduct of his. the only time he responds to anything in a forceful way is when he feels his ego at stake. and that is what people are judging right now. he made the campaign from the beginning about his personality, persona and character. he made this campaign about himself. you heard that all throughout the speech about the red zone. who can save the country? ky. i can. and now so the only time he responds in a forceful way is either to defend himself or attack someone else and not care who he is offending even when it is the most sympathetic people you can imagine. that is really going to make your question about templement. >> -- donald trump not being allowed to speak at the dnc dnc because she was a muslim. here is my answer to trump.

without saying a thing. all the world, all america felt my pain. i'm a gold star mother. whoever saw me, felt me in my heart. feeling the need to defend herself in this way. how is this playing out with voters who are watching this? >> well i think it is playing out very unsympathetically for donald trump because of all the play she and her husband are getting. i think it is fascinating the dynamics here when patricia smith tries to go on the air and only one network will have her on. patricia smith's son died in benghazi and the khans are both either beyond reproach or both political opportunistis. you have to choose one of the other. but hillary clinton did go out and criticize mrs. smith and basically called her a liar and --. so you do have cases where both

candidates have criticized gold star parents but only one seems to be getting a lot of sympathy. >> they said she miss heard what she said. but go ahead. >> this is interpreted as her basically calling the woman a liar. and i think that is fair to interpret it. my point is that you have one gold star mother who's basically criticizing a candidate for causing the death of her son. and you have another one who is criticizing a candidate for attacking that candidate and for having different policies. look, none of this looks good for donald trump right now. but i think in our lead in, katie tur was right in seeing the trump strategy is to make as little as possible as the series of small brush fires. hilla hillary's problem is trying to make over two giant or three giant conflagration. >> and the republican response. tom play more from khan's interview on meet the press today and you can answer this.

again specifically for his message for republicans. take a listen. >> i appeal to the leadership of the republican party that they should dissociate themselves. >> a direct plea to mitch mcconnell by name and paul ryan by name. >> that is correct. >> you said you were fans of both of them. >> correct. i remain, i have tremendous respect for both of them. republican and democrats are as patriotic as anyone else. this is a political process. it is a wonderful, beautiful political process. but in that political process, there are some moral, ethical values of this country that need to maintained and managed. >> tom, what do you think about that? >> i think he's absolutely right. e need leadership right now and leadership needs to say this isn't a race to the bottom of the barrel. and that is where we are right flow. and i would ask, that, look, i have tremendous respect for speaker ryan. i think he's literally the future of our party. but someone needs to stand up

and say enough of this. we cannot have gold star mothers. we can't have four star generals being attacked. that is not whom our party was. that is who ronald reagan or jack kemp was. there needs to be a leader who says we've had enough. it can't be on the fringe. it needs to be people across the board to stand up. i don't care about my reelection. i care more about the future of our country and the party than the individual election. >> he claims that clinton campaign is trying to manipulate the debate schedule and brought in the nfl to make his case. take a listen. >> i got a letter from the nfl saying this is ridiculous. why are the debates against -- because the nfl doesn't want to go against the debate because the debates are going to be pretty massive from what i understand. and i don't think we should be against the nfl. >> but the nfl tells nbc they never sent a letter to trump. i should say the campaign is now

saying it was a source close to the a leak. but how many missteps are voters going to accept. >> is he not going to participate in the debates? i think he's trying to come up with a reason. it's ridiculous. >> -- largest audience possible. >> he's trying to set up a scenario where people mistrust the moderators and the networks. preempting the next moments where a moderator seems to decide with his poens so when he doesn't do well maybe in one of the debates he'll have a reason to explain it. >> always strategy there. thank you for talking with us. new developments this hour in texas, where investigators are opening up about what could have caused the deadliest hot air balloon accident in u.s. history. and later preventing minorities from casting their votes. a federal court says that was the goal of north carolina's voter id law which, struck it down.

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new details emerging surrounding the deadly hot air balloon crash that killed at least 16 in central texas. the ntsb says they are focusing on weather conditions at the time of the crash and how the balloon was operated and maintained. >> we are looking at the operation of the balloon, the pilot, the company that operated the balloon. we'll be looking at the maintenance aspects of this balloon. witnesses. we're certainly interested to know any witness information that we may be able to get. fire aspects. we're bringing in an expert in fire science.

>> nbc's carrie sanders is following the latest in lockheart texas. >> the witnesses are painting a punish that's helping the ntsb investigators. first you can see the power lines, the high voltage power lines, 245,000 volts running through them. and if we go to to our second camera and take a live picture, you can see just beyond those power lines is where the debris came down after the balloon hit the power lines. investigators are going through methodically trying to gather whatever data they can get there. among the things that they are getting from eye witnesses are not only what they saw but this snapshot. this picture was taken 18 minutes before the balloon hit the power line. and the witness who took that photograph said it appeared that the balloon was struggling to gain altitude. you can see it is just above the

tree line and that is why the witness took a picture. when it finally game in contact with the power linus here there was what one description described as the large explosion. listen to what he had to say. >> i can't really driebt. i never heard anything like it before. it wasn't like an explosion. it was kind of like a shhhh -- and it just went up. and i fired clear up to about even with, with where these lines kind of hang down lower, i'd say the fire ball was at least that high. >> my apologies. she said it was do not a loud explosion. another witness said it seemed like a loud explosion. they will not come to a coop clougs as to what want wrong but they will look at the mechanical aspects of this. they will look at if environment specifically t weather and then the last thing of course is the operation. the pilot. but unlikely most air disasters that we see these days which

involve commercial aircraft. this is a hot air balloon. it doesn't have a black box. so the telemetry information that might have another accident doesn't exit here. >> another important thing, we're also learning about the victims. what can you tell us? >> you know, it is so sad. 16 people on board. we have identified at least two of those through the brother of two people who died. that was matt and sudden rowan. brother joshua, the older brother told us they had gonna on this air balloon ride simply as something to do on a relaxing saturday morning. they live in san antonio. he worked at the burn unit, working specifically with soldiers. they had just started their life together. they had only been married for about a year. and said that both of them were wonderful people. and we're hearing from other family members who are at least posting on social media. all of them shocked and really

just dismayed about the possibility that something so beautiful and something so serene as to going on an air balloon ride could end so tragically. >> you see the pictures and it is just so sad. heavy rains in maryland caused flash flooding and severe damage this weekend and one death. new video shows i rushing flood water plowing through a street and submerging this volkswagen. and officials declared an emergency after six inches fell in just three hours. one woman killed when swept away by the flood waters. at least 120 people had to be rescued. following an appeals court ruling striking down north carolina's voter id law. the court saying the measure targeted african americans. next the head of north carolina's naacp reverend william barber weighs in following his calls for unity at

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>> he's already demonstrated. and does so every day, that he is temperamentally unfit and unqualified to be president of the united states and commander in chief. and the latest attacks on the khan family, on general allen. just reinforces the doubts that any american should have. >> coming up, we'll speak with the co-founder of vote vets for his perspective on this battle between the gold star family and donald trump. >> now to north carolina where a federal appeals court struck down the states voter id law. ruling on friday that the law's provisions target african americans with almost surgical precision. this after north carolina state lawmakers requested data on racial differences in voting behaviors in the state. that data showing that african americans disproportionately lack the most common kind of photo id, those issues by the dmv. the north carolina governor is

bound to appeal. saying photo ids are required to purchase sudafed, cash a check, board an airplane or enter a federal courtroom. joining us now william barber president of the north carolina naacp. let me start with your reaction to this ruling. >> first as a governor o who defending racism and saying he doesn't want to see people vote. that is really troubling in this country. the shelby decision was the worst roll back of voting rights since 1965. the congress in the united states has engaged in a 1131 day filibuster refusing to fix the voter rights act. this a voter suppression because

t not only --. this victory was huge. it was two white judges, one african american who unanimously said this was intentional racism and discrimination. because everything that our legislature tried to take away, they first asked, well, how african americans using same day r registration and when they saw the high numbers, let's remove that. how that are they removing early voting? let's remove that. so this was surgical, intentional racism according to the courts. >> what do you think about the fact that the north carolina governor mcrory says the state will appeal the ruling? >> well, you know, our governor has been wrong in so many ways with the legislature. he and tom tillis in the senate saying they are going this because of the volter fraud.

in fact they admitted years ago it wasn't according to voter fraud. he's been against healthcare. he's been against living wages. he's been against helping the lgbt community. he's been immigrant rights. and here as a governor who swore to uphold the constitution is now literally saying that he's angry at the courts ensuring the right for everybody to vote. particularly in the south that is troubling and what he should do is repent of the racism that the courts have said here. >> reverend barber, if we look at the latest nbc battle ground map. north carolina is really a toss up at least. what impact do you think this ruling will have in november? >> i think it is going to have a huge, huge impact. in 2008 when president obama won, he lost on election day. but he actually won during same day registration and early voting. which is why as soon as they got power they began to not only

redistrict our state but to take back these provisions that have helped north carolina over come the vestiges of the discrimination and voting. it is not just north carolina. this said something to the entire south. it said something to all of these southern legislatures that want to suppress the vote. because they know right now in the south if you register 30% of the african americans and they join with progressive whites and latino, the solid south is no longer south. states like virginia, north carolina, mississippi, alabama and florida come into play. and if you can breakthrough solid south, that is critical to america. because if you control the 11 southern states you control 22 seats in the senate. u.s. senate. you control 31% of the house of representatives and you control 162 electoral votes. so if you break open the solid south you change the dynamics of american politics. >> this is the first time we've talked and i can feel your passion through the screen.

i know you talked about reviving the heart of our democracy in the dnc speech and i know your work will continue. thank you for talk with us this afternoon. >> thank you so much. >> reaction to the dnc speech by the father of captain khan keeps coming in from both sides of the aisle. after the break we'll speak with the chairman and impact of vote v vets and donald trump's respond to it could have in the polls in november. >> you have sacrificed nothing. and no one. real is touching a ray. amazing is moving like one. real is making new friends. amazing is getting this close. real is an animal rescue. amazing is over twenty-seven thousand of them. there's only one place where real and amazing live.

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4-year-old granddaughter said to her grandmother, why were you so upset? why were you so sad? a 4-year-old person can feel that sadness. yet the candidate for the president of united states cannot emphasize with the people that he wishes to lead? >> joining us now. john schultz. good afternoon to you. >> good afternoon. >> let's start by look at the latest u.s. government data. 14 muslim service members have died in combat since 911. and roughly 5,896 muslim american active reservists or reserve members. captain khan is one of those 14 fallen soldiers. what is your reaction to donald trump's most recent response? >> it really hurts. obviously this isn't if first time where he's attacked veterans or military families. hoe obviously disrespected john

mccain as a pow. and i think for me personally it is very hurtful. we have muslim veterans who are in our organization. have active roles within vote vets. we have a lot of gold star families. -- is one of our senior advisors and a lot of them have reached out to us today and they are upset. and a i think a lot of tears over the last 24 to 48 hours. to think where you can live in a country and you can become this close to the presidency and -- the families of the fallen. it is shocking and hard for me as well. i've had a difficult time from my first deployment through my second till now of actually talking to veterans. i think a lot feel maybe they were lucky. and i can tell you with captain khan, essentially my age. died six months after i came home from my first tour. seven months or eight months and

i they lot of us feel we could have been. hard to think that someone this close to being president who has no respect for armed forces. >> she writes quote, we asked if there was some way he could not go. he said it was his duty. i could not go when he was going to the plane and he looked back at me. he was happy and giving me strength, don't worry much, everything will be all right. >> you mentioned some of the gold star parents who have reacted to the khans what are they telling you? is there a point of action here? are they just in disbelief? >> we're going to act. and i think at vote vets we've already acted heavily against donald trump spending millions of dollars with general paul eaten who's been on television in nine states talking about what donald trump doesn't have the temperament to be commander in chief. his father also was killed in vietnam.

i think they feel that -- there is nothing worse than when someone in a military officers uniform comes to your door and that is that news. and very defensive of captain khan's mother. this president doesn't quite understand the grief she could be feeling and that's why she was quiet. and that's mostly where i think the disattachment is. is the idea that this individual who could potentially be the commander in chief can't relate to the military families who have sacrificed so much. but we will aggressively move forward against donald trump and hold him accountable. and continue to articulate this story and in states that matter specifically battle ground states. that if you cannot respect our military, you cannot lead our country. >> jon, thank you for talking with us this afternoon. >> thank you. >> next, calls for congress to aid in the fight against zika, with four new cases now confirmed in florida.

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americans are buying more and more of everything online. and so many businesses rely on the united states postal service to get it there. that's why we make more ecommerce deliveries to homes than anyone else in the country. the united states postal service. priority: you florida senator bill nelson is asking mitch mcconnell to reconvene congress so lawmakers can pass an emergency spending bill to fight the vaed spread of zika virus. after health officials four people in the miami area likely contracted zika from mosquito bites. joining us now infectious disease and public health specialist. good afternoon. let's talk about this. what are they doing now to try to stop this. >> this really doesn't come as a surprise.

based on the mosquitos in the united states we fully expected to see cases in florida, texas and elsewhere along the gulf coast. however what is a surprise is how long congress has taken to act on funding to fight zika virus. >> we'll get o that. but i want to talk about the fda. they asked all the blood banks in miami dade and broward stop collecting blood immediately. we understand why so they can test the nations for the zika virus. but are we concerned an the collection of blood. >> there are some a specific calls for platelets through blood donors. and those in particular, these are not blood products you can just fly across the country. so if you have a shortage of certain blood products in miami that is really going to van have an impact on patients there. >> i guess we can understand why. >> absolutely.

but statemeat the same time it really important to start controlling zika. >> the funding now. to fight this t white house and cdc sounded the alarm. how desperate is the situation? >> depending on the kind of crisis we have funding on hand. so if for example if you have a natural disaster, earthquake or hurricane. we have federal disaster relief funds on hand to immediately step in and fight. obama and the rest of the administration since january has been requesting emergency funds which have yet to materializes. so meanwhile we're stealing money from other sources and that's a problem when you look at massive budget counts since 2008. so it is a really very ham strung situation. >> so far there have been more than 1600 confirmed cases in the u.s. and nearly 5,000 in u.s. territories and this one is a

sad one. in some of these cases more than 800 are pregnant women. so for people watching this afternoon, what are we supposed to be doing? is this st just for that one specific area? should we all be concerned? >> i think in terms of the miami area and in potentially travel. that is one of the questions i've been getting. if you are a pregnant woman you want to wait a couple more weeks until we get more testing. and testing the mosquitos and the people in the area to get a better sense of the scale of the problem. for others who are not pregnant or trying to get pregnant, going to that area is really more of a question of common sense, precaution. wearing mosquito repellant, long sleeve, long pants. staying indoors to minimize exposure. i don't think we're going to see a mange outbreak throughout the united states but we certainly will see cases along the gulf coast. >> so just be careful. no panic. >> precisely. >> thank you for talking to me.

>> my pleasure. >> next the rhetoric on russia. donald trump doubling down. insisting that being on good terms with president putin could be promising. but hillary clinton saying not so fast. claiming trump's take puts national security at risk. an ip depth look at the debate, straight ahead n-depth look at straight ahead and these are the lungs. (boy) sorry. (dad) don't worry about it. (vo) at our house, we need things that are built to last. that's why we got a subaru. (avo) love. it's what makes a subaru, a subaru. every day is a chance to dop, something great.. and for the ones they love, they'd do anything. sears optical has glasses made for doing. right now, buy one pair and get another free. quality eyewear for doers. sears optical

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donald trump is being quizzed about his alleged ties to russia after cyber attacks against the democrats have been linked to moscow. trump denies he has a personal relationship with russian president vladimir putin, but on this week with george stephanopoulos, he said he was receptive to better relations with russia. >> if our country got along with russia, that would be a great thing. when putin goes out and tells everybody, and you talk about relationship, but he says donald trump is going to win and donald trump is a genius, and then i have people saying you should disavow. i said i'm going to disavow that? but if we can have a good relationship with russia, and if russia would help us get rid of isis, frankly as far as i'm

concerned, you're talking about tremendous amounts of money and lives and everything else, that would be a positive thing. >> well, how would u.s.-russia relations change under new administration? back with us now tom do herty, former advisor to governor pataki. and david, political editor for the daily mail. why don't we start with this. let's listen to what hillary clinton had to say about these hack attacks. this is from her appearance on fox today. >> we know that russian intelligence services, which are part of the russian government, which is under the firm control of vladimir putin, hacked into the dnc. and we know that they arranged for a lot of those e-mails to be released. and we know that donald trump has shown a very troubling willingness to backup putin. >> david, if russia is indeed behind these attacks, how damaging is this? >> well, ultimately, actually, i

think it might be damaging to hillary clinton, believe it or not. if russia has been hacking our political enterprises and our political entities, they've been doing it for a long time. remember it was hillary clinton who went to russia in march of 2009 and wanted to have a big reset with the russian government. she originally was the one who said we needed a better relationship with russia. and if this is russia hacking the democratic party and hacking her campaign, i guess it didn't work very well. >> tom, in that same abc interview trump seemed to struggle when pressed on if he had a relationship with putin. take a listen. >> you said for three years, '13, '14 and '15 you did have a relationship with him. >> what do you call a relationship? >> i'm asking you. >> i have no relationship with putin. i have great respect. i don't think i ever met him, i don't think i've ever met him -- >> you would know it if you did, wouldn't you? >> i would think so. i don't think i've ever met him, if he's in the same room or something, but i don't think so. >> given his comments later backtrack on inviting russia to

hack clinton's e-mails, how concerning is trump's stance for putin. >> i think it stands foreign policy for a lot of republicans especially a lot of us who care about our international relations. look, he struggled with the whole question of russia invading the ukraine. e-mails though are a problem for hillary clinton. the more we talk about e-mails goes back to her own personal server problem. and so i think that she would like this whole situation to go away and go away rather quickly. we've learned that, look, the wheels have come off of trump. the bus continues to run despite the wheels being off the bus. he gets to say whatever he wants. he knows putin. he doesn't know putin. he's infatuated with putin, he doesn't know putin. this is another semicontroversy that will go under and the voters will have to make a decision who they think from a foreign policy standpoint is the best person to lead our country going forward. >> let's pivot just a little bit. hillary clinton sounds convinced that putin is behind this.

how damaged is this relationship going to be if she's in the white house? >> look, i think there's two separate issues here. i think to talk about it in purely political context is actually unfortunate. because the first issue is a serious national security issue. if russia is trying to meddle in u.s. elections as they have meddled in other elections and trying to manipulate power in other countries, that is a very serious national security problem. the separate problem is talking about trump and his relationship with putin and his relationship with the russians. whether it's a relationship or not, just the fact he seems to have a very, very basic understanding and actually a very dangerously limited understanding of what's going on with the russian involvement in the ukraine. he seems to have no idea what's going on and will keep throwing statements out. so if that is what people are looking for in a commander in chief, that is nuts. but i think to go to the first issue, it is very -- i mean, it is critical that we start to treat this like the national security problem that it is. this is going to make florida hanging chad's 2000 look like nothing if russia is actually

trying to hack in and meddle in our elections. >> i think you're right, emily, there are several layers to this one. tom, let you pick up. the democrats suggest the russians would be free to get stronger under trump. how do republicans counter that when you have trump praising putin at times? >> it is important we have a good relationship with russia, but we also have to be cognizant of the fact of what we're dealing with. this is a gentleman who has murdered journalists, stolen from his own citizens, somehow donald trump thinks that's a good thing, that shows he's a strong leader. we need to be firm. ronald reagan was very stern in his way he dealt with russia. we need to do the same thing. i want to go back to emily's point. i think she's exactly right. it is really troublesome when we have presidential candidates who are urging foreign governments to meddle into our elections. and then come back and say i was just being sarcastic. foreign policy -- >> right, it's not flip. >> this is not something we should be flip about. foreign policy's a very serious matter for people much above my

pay grade. and we need to be serious about it going forward. >> with that said, david, i want to bring you in here. here's the question, is the world safer if america is on good terms with russia? >> well, look, we've already gotten on good terms with cuba. that's a terribly horribly murderous regime, but our current administration's decided to open up diplomatic relations. i don't see everybody getting up in arms about that. to the point about national security and what donald trump said in his wednesday press conference, i was there in the room asking questions. and i'll tell you, if you actually believe donald trump was urging the russians to hack hillary clinton's e-mails, you would have to believe that her e-mail server is still online somewhere. that's absolutely idiotic. i was there and i took him to mean that he was saying, hey, russia, if you've been hacking and you've got the e-mails, let's see them. let's see what hillary clinton deleted. i think that's a completely reasonable position and i don't think he was urging the russians to hack a server which the fbi told us it took offline more than a year ago. >> we're almost out of time, what do you guys think about that? do you agree? >> i think any sort of encouragement from a major party

presidential candidate for a foreign government to be getting involved is -- it's terrifying. i mean, it really is terrifying. >> some lively discussion. i don't want it to end but we're out of time. emily, david, tom, thank you all for joining me this afternoon. and that does it for this hour. i'm sheinelle jones live at msnbc headquarters in new york. my colleague richard lui picks things up after the break. enjoy your sunday. th ed can... take viagra when they need it. ask your doctor if your heart is healthy enough for sex. do not take viagra if you take nitrates for chest pain or adempas® for pulmonary hypertension. your blood pressure could drop to an unsafe level. to avoid long-term injury, seek immediate medical help for an erection lasting more than four hours. stop taking viagra and call your doctor right away if you experience a sudden decrease or loss in vision or hearing. ask your doctor about viagra single packs. he wrecked the rec room this summer. his stellar notebooks will last through june.

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